The think tank will work on a national agrifood strategy
An organization focused on aligning innovation with farmer needs has created a body to support American agriculture.
Idealyst Innovation, which launched last year, recently established the Center for American Food Power.
“It’s a strategic think tank to strengthen U.S. agriculture by advancing what we’re calling a comprehensive national agrifood strategy and the supporting policy frameworks it’ll take to execute it,” Brett Sciotto, CEO of Idealyst Innovation, told Farms.com.
This national strategy for agrifood will also be aligned with national security.
This mirrors action from the U.S. government.
An MOU between the USDA and the Department of War, for example, elevates the protection of U.S. agriculture into America’s national security framework.
Food security is foundational to national security, said Sciotto, a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and former U.S. Army intelligence officer.
“It makes sense for us to think deeply about what is required of agrifood going forward,” he said. “I’ve often said that no matter how powerful your military or economy is, if you don’t have food security, all of that is in jeopardy. We need to think about where our nation needs to be from a food production point of view and think about what transformation and empowerment needs to happen in the next decade to meet our domestic needs and serve the world in the best possible way.”
Sciotto’s work at the intersection of agriculture and national security spans over 20 years.
This includes founding Aimpoint Research, a global strategic intelligence firm specializing in the agri-food industry.
Now is the right time for the Center for American Food Power to begin its important work.
“Obviously there’s structural shifts reshaping how food is produced, processed, and delivered,” he said. “We have to assess those dynamics objectively and build a strategy that contemplates them rather than move through time being reactive to those dynamics.”
To help the Center for American Food Power develop the national strategy, it formed the American Food Power Council.
This leadership group brings together senior leaders from agriculture, policy, and other sectors.
Along with Sciotto members include Gregg Doud, president and CEO of the National Milk Producers Federation, and a former chief ag negotiator. Julie Anna Potts, president and CEO at the Meat Institute, and Joel Leftwich, chief strategy officer with the Kansas Farm Bureau, are also involved in the initial 13-member council.
But more voices are welcome.
“We want to hear from everyone,” Sciotto said. “This is a broad coalition and every perspective is important. I encourage farmers and ranchers to get in contact with us so we can do this in a collaborative fashion.”
The council will be split into three working groups – future needs & requirements, constraints & vulnerabilities, and transformation & empowerment.
“Those groups will consume intelligence and post conversations and discussions, and do the heavy lifting in their areas,” Sciotto said. “This work will ultimately find its way into the national agrifood that we will publish next year.”